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Boxing

Munguia Dominates Smith, Retains WBO Title

By FIGHT SPORTS

Jaime Munguia proved that his WBO junior middleweight title over Sadam Ali showed that it was no fluke.

Munguia retained his title with a unanimous decision win over former world champion Liam Smith in Las Vegas on HBO. Munguia won the fight with scores of 119-108, 118-110 and 116-111.

After a slow start from Munguia that saw Smith land his straight right hand throughout the first couple of rounds, Munguia slowly got some momentum thanks to his power punches. Munguia struggled to land his usual punches as he swung and missed wildly at times while Smith took advantages of Munguia’s many defensive lapses.

But once Munguia started to land those shots, he quickly got confident and took control of the fight quickly. Munguia’s size and power advantage took a toll on Smith about halfway through the fight, but Smith continued to provide Munguia with a tough challenge. The sixth round was the fight really tilted in Munguia’s favor when he dropped Smith with a hard left hand.

With the win, Munguia improves to 30-0 as a pro with 25 wins coming via knockout. Munguia had won all four of his fights in 2018 and got his shot at the WBO world title when Smith, Ali’s original opponent back in May, went down with a skin condition and unable to fully prepare. Munguia stepped in for Smith in May and quickly knocked out Ali to win the title.

In the co-main event bout of the HBO telecast, Alberto Machado successfully retained his WBA super featherweight title with a wide unanimous decision win over Rafael Mensah. Thanks to a knockdown from a right hand by Machado in the first round, Machado won on all three judges cards with scores of 120-107. This was Machado’s first world title defense since defeating Jezreel Corrales last year to win the title.

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